“The Dukes” on DVD

“Warner Archives is offering the first 400 pre-orders for Hanna Barbera’s The Dukes: The Complete Animated Series, autographed by actor James Best (who played Sheriff Coltrane). Limit 1 per customer. The DVD set will be released on December 7th.”

I wonder how many people were on the fence about buying this DVD set, but changed their mind and immediately ordered it once they heard the fifth-billed actor on the series was going to sign the box?

When are the complete Cattanooga Cats,Roman Holidays,
Chan Clan,Goober & the Ghost Chasers,and Partridge Family in the Year 2200 DVDs coming out?

Christopher Smigliano

The DUKES series shown here is put out by “Warner Archives” a sort of “Each DVD made BY ORDER” service that means NO remasters or extras. GOOBER is availiable, as well as PIRATES OF DARK WATER,FUNKY PHANTOM,and The 1972 ADDAMS FAMILY cartoon series. They also do many classic movies they might not consider “Saleable” enough thru regular store releases. You can find them at the Warner Brothers Entertainment site.

Nick

‘Goober and the Ghost Chasers’ is already out through the Warner Archive. ‘Partridge Family in the Year 2200′ is owned by Sony (and I doubt they care). There was an article on TVshowsonDVD about ‘Chan Clan’, can’t really remember for sure, but I think it said that it would come out in early 2011 (don’t quote me on that). Nothing on ‘Cattanooga Cats’ or ‘Roman Holidays’ though.

Out of curiosity, I look up the first episode of this and see it was animated by Don Patterson.
He worked on THIS?!
I cried.
Warner Archive: pay the money for the stock music rights and release the old Huck, Yogi and Quick Draw cartoons that are gathering dust after being restored.

KB

Don Patterson worked on a lot of Hanna-Barbera Saturday mornign cartoons, including quite a few seasons of “Scooby and Scrappy-Doo”.

Chris Sobieniak

Just be thankful these guys stuck it out like they did before retirement. Noticed Patterson worked on “GoBots” (The Kmart Transformers). It’s weird thinking how many of these Golden Age guys stuck it out the longest to do stuff during my childhood.

http://2dwannabe.blogspot.com robcat2075

Better for an animator to animate than be a greeter at WalMart.

Peter Bangs

He may have been 5th billed but Coltrane and Hogg were the two standout characters on the show and everyone loves a good villain. If I was inclined to buy it at all this would sway me more than an autograph from Bo, Luke or Uncle Jessie.

http://garrisonsjunk.blogspot.com Chris Garrison

I think the fact that they referred to him as “Sheriff Coltrane,” and not “Roscoe P. Coltrane,” indicates that whoever wrote that email never watched the show (live action or animated). They might be too young to have seen it.

Karen

Or that “Roscoe P. Coltrane” was trademarked, and can’t be used by the actor to make money.

As far as Ray Patterson goes, lots of talented people worked on pure crap. Just look at the credits of any tiny tunes or animaniacs show (if you choose to suffer through them).

Michelle

I bought one. It will go with the seven DVD boxed sets of the live action series.

Say what you will, but “The Dukes of Hazzard” was a Friday night staple on TV after a hard week of JHS & HS.

Warner Archive has released a lot of titles that would otherwise not see the light of day.

In the past year they’ve done a set of all the MGM “Our Gang” films (admitedly not as good as the Hal Roach shorts, but many are still fun), a set with all of the Joe McDoakes shorts (starring George “George Jetson” O’Hanlon), Adam West’s 1979 “Legends of the Superheroes” TV specials, as well as many other movies & TV series.

+1 on the Harlem Globetrotter’s series. I dare say the 1970′s had more kitsch per year than any other decade in history….

Andrew Kieswetter

I really give WB Archives praise for releasing Robert
Altman’s classic (yes,classic) ‘Brewster McCloud’ on DVD. I still would really love to see HB’s ‘Cattanooga Cats’, ‘Chan Clan’, and ‘Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kids’ series released on DVD by Warner Archives sometime in the near future.

tony mccarson

but what about “yogi’s treasure hunt” ?

http://www.animehell.org danno!

James Best did some good work in Shock Corridor.

http://joeshouseofblog.blogspot.com/ JP Doyle

Yeah, I saw that too. I guess “The Dukes of Hazzard” is popular enough to sort of justify a release for this show, along with a silly little promotion.

Still, I think the upcoming release for “SWAT Kats” is far more worth the money, despite costing five dollars more. Further, this collection’s also got “Pirates of Dark Water” and “Thundarr the Barbarian” (Jack Kirby, baby!). One should at least consider that.

Chris Sobieniak

Some out there are probably glad to finally see this ol’ relic again. Years ago I knew of someone out there who charged $20 per tape for every episode of the show in the Black Market. These were taken from typical fan-owned 16mm prints and the quality is what once could expect but that was all we had. I guess I can throw away my tapes now (if I care).

Tory

I’m a glutton for punishment. I want this, I would buy it, especially with the autograph but budget concerns and the high price kind of make me say no. I hope they use a similar incentive on Gilligan’s cartoons.

Toonio

If this release shortens the queue to get Animaniacs volume 4 released, well, bombs away!

Gerard de Souza

I imagine this is for the ultra hard core Dukes of Hazzard fans more than animation fans.
Nostalgia’s a funny thing.
I know no one who likes the Dukes of Hazzard who was actually an adult when it premiered. It’s funny to hear people wax nostalgically about other stuff that at the time was really just fodder to insert commercials into and in between. To anyone thinking purchasing something because you remember it was great when you were a kid, I suggest somehow previewing or renting it first.

David Breneman

I remember an animated show in the 70s called “The Oddball Couple.” It was “The Odd Couple” with a cat named “Spiffy” as the Felix character, and a dog named “Fleabag” as the Oscar character. If it ever comes out on video, it will be a sign that we are in the End Times.

Funkybat

Wow. That’s so obscure, I’ve never even heard of it or seen a clip from it. And I knew about both “Super President” and Filmation’s “Quakula.”

I would also agree that any DVD release of the more obscure DePatie-Freling cartoons from the ’70s indeed signals that the end is nigh…

Andrew Kieswetter

Like ‘Bailey’s Comets’ or ‘Baggy Pants & the Nitwits’ for example?

Mike Russo

How come we can get crap like this but not the rest of Animaniacs or Tiny Toon Adventures?

Greg Ehrbar

We’re actually watching “The Funky Phantom” as I write this. I have illusions about the relative quality of some of these programs but I grew up loving Saturday morning cartoons and want Warner Archive to keep them coming.

My kids are fond of the best in Warner, Pixar, Miyazaki, Disney, Dreamworks, H-B and other animation, but my son in particular is like me in the fact that he takes each cartoon for what it is. He revels in almost every animated feature and series. Of course, some are on “the top shelf” so to speak, but we can even find fun in the stock predictability and “meddling kids” cliches as part of the overall goofball fun. Some times my wife will watch a few with us and try to make logical sense out of the plots, and the sheer futility of such a noble effort can be the source of whimsical joy.

Anyway, we finished watching all the the episodes of Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space (BTW this week on Stu’s Show on shokusradio.com, Janet Waldo was reunited with Sherry Alberoni) and we’re almost done with Funky Phantom (which has Micky Dolenz in the cast — cool!)

I personally would like to see Roman Holidays. If you don’t think the animation is very good, just turn off the picture and listen to voice pros like Dave Willock, Shirley Mitchell, Pamelyn Ferdin, Stan Livingston and Dom Deluise. It may not be Julius Caesar, or even the Flintstones, but there’s something of considerable charm.

This stuff was cranked out at a breakneck pace at laughable budgets — but by some of the best professionals in the business. Despite the obstacles and limitations, there are ribbons of gold in them thar shows.

Gerard de Souza

While I wish I could take a time machine and work with and meet the pros working at HB in the 70s, and I understand the time and budget to produce what they did, it really feel by looking at the product that they were spread way too thin and/or no longer cared.

Chris Sobieniak

You can say that for most of those shows anyway. It’s hard to deny how bad they were when many look back on them in some nostalgic way like that was all we had, that was what they showed us, we only had three channels on the dial, etc.

Of course, compare that to what was going on over in Japan during those years and it’s such a amazing contrast. Heck, it might not be too long for Marine Boy to get a release soon!

Funkybat

It’s good to see Warners willing to release obscure toons via “made to order DVD” but some of the things they are picking to release first puzzle me.

I would have expected the following to come out long before “Goober & the Ghost Chasers” or “Dukes.”

I saw a couple of “Roman Holidays” episodes, probably on the same cable channel as you, and enjoyed it mainly as a H-B geek. There are so many obscure, short-lived Hanna-Barbera shows from the 70s and 80s that I’m morbidly curious about because I’ve either only read about their existence, or saw them as a toddler and have just foggy impressions of them.

http://journeytojohnsbrain.blogspot.com/ Mr. Zone

James Best is one of the great surviving character actors. Strangely he will probably always be associated as Rosco. However, he was an actor with some range as seen in his understated performance in the over-looked third season Twilight Zone episode: “The Grave” co-starring Lee Marvin & Lee Van Cleef.

Matt Sullivan

Why is everything an automatic insult toward a person or their work on this board?

Fine. It’s not a GOOD show by any stretch of the imagination. But it employed some starving board artist back in the 80′s. And God forbid there may have been a few people who actually like the show. You gonna tell them what MORONS they are for liking something?

Yeesh.

http://dmgermain.blogspot.com David Germain

Hey, for me Roscoe P. Coltrane was the main reason I tuned in to the (live action) Dukes of Hazzard as a kid. That and all the car crashes. (No, I never took much interest in Daisy Dukes’ hottness as a kid. I only liked her because she got to crash some cars too).

I never found much use for the cartoon version of the Dukes though. Animation is supposed to create life. What this show did was turn what’s already alive to something dead and zombie-like. Even with James Best’s autograph, I won’t be picking that up anytime soon.

http://www.frankpanucci.com Frank Panucci

I didn’t know this show existed until now.
Oddly, I am not immediately moved to order the DVD.

Warner Archives has also just released “The Phantom Tollbooth” (remastered!). Too bas I live outside the USA, so I cannot order it.
And hey, speaking of lesser-known Hanna-Barbera series, I would definitely like to see a “Cattanooga Cats” set, if only for the psychedelic, Peter Max-inspired song sequences.

When the animated Dukes first aired, John Schneider and Tom Wopat were having a salary dispute with Warners, so instead of Bo and Luke, Roscoe was chasing two other Dukes, Coy and Vance… and these “scab Dukes” also turned up in the cartoon. Bo and Luke eventually returned to the show, and managed to show up in the cartoon before it ended its run.

(James Best also had a pay squabble and he was briefly replaced by Dick Sargent… yup, Darrin #2 from “Bewitched.”)

Chris Sobieniak

I somehow wondered if that was what prevented the show from airing in the fall of 1982? It’s first episode wouldn’t debut until February ’83, with the last episode shown that October. It should be of note the first season, comprising of 13 episodes, used the Coy and Vance guys, while Bo & Luke returned for the shorten second season (7 episodes), though I don’t suppose CBS used that as a marketing plug on this cartoon.

Steve Menke

Come to think of it, when was the last time an established live-action TV series made the transition to cereal-hours cartoon? (Doubt this autographed disc will move as quickly as the first-400-copies, Angie Dickinson-signed “Pretty Maids All in a Row” did for Warner Archive.)

Chris Sobieniak

The only one I can think of was ALF (1987), certainly nothing past the 80′s but I wouldn’t be surprised if something showed up in the 90′s either. The early 80′s had a few of these based off of sitcoms like Mork & Mindy and Happy Days.

In bothering to spoil this cartoon for many, the Dukes are in a race around the world to collect the prize money to save Jesse’s farm from foreclosure, but Boss Hogg enters to in order to prevent them from finishing this race (which never happens at the end of the series but that was obvious). The Dukes go to different places per episode, solve a mystery or help someone out, while Boss Hogg gets all PO’d and goes through the same “Drats, Foiled Again!” over and over. All the while, Uncle Jesse is back home reading these postcards of the Dukes’ adventure to his pet raccoon, ho hum!

The Gee

I have no idea how you remember ANY of that. So, they took the confederate flag around the world? Wow. That combined with “Yeee-haaaaaaw” and that special carhorn must make for solid something or another.

But, didn’t Boss Hogg have some sort of pet character?

That was just an odd period for television. There’s was too much of certain shows. Whether it was an animated version or a spin-off series, there was often a lot from the “hit” shows.

If it is for sale on the DVD then for goodness sakes, there’s marathons to watch for lucky souls out there in TV Land. Then quench your thirsts with toy and video game adaptations.

Chris Sobieniak

Thanks for noticing my knowledge Gee! It comes from decades in front of the tube!

Yeah, technically it’s Roscoe’s dog “Flash” from the 3rd season onward that appears in this cartoon as well, so that’s two cartoon animal sidekicks!

“That was just an odd period for television. There’s was too much of certain shows. Whether it was an animated version or a spin-off series, there was often a lot from the “hit” shows.”

I prefer to think of this as MY wonder years! I’ll never see them again.

Tory

Not a Saturday morning thing but I believe there is to be an anime based off of Supernatural.

Also, kind of but not really, I guess associated, maybe, there was a Highlander cartoon series and I think later an anime but not certain as of that. It was a third McCloud in the future, I think it in the same continuity as the TV series and film but far enough removed that it didn’t really matter.

We really should have had an Urkel cartoon but it never happened, sadly. I’m shocked it never did. I would hav eloved that and Perfect Strangers shorts as backups.

There was going to be a Buffy cartoon but it never happened. I always wanted a NewsRadio cartoon, now I want a Community and we are getting an animated Christmas special!

I have dim memories of there being a Dukes cartoon on Saturday mornings, and I did order it. James Best is a prolific veteran of classic television, movies, and western genre and a great character actor. I’d much rather have his autograph than a couple of grimey-looking washed-up middle-age has-beens like Wopat and Schneider. Too bad Denver Pyle or Sorrell Booke aren’t still around to autograph them also.

And for all of you scratching your heads about what Warner Archive chooses to release, my gut says pretty much anything and everything in the HB/RS libraries that isn’t slated for a commercial release or doesn’t have rights issues is going to find it’s way onto the Warner Archive eventually, so just be patient.

Brian Kidd

I’m just glad to hear that James Best is still alive! For some reason, I was under the impression that he passed on years ago! I was a huge DUKES fan as a kid. As for the cartoons, I never really cared for them. I watched a few episodes from time-to-time, but only when nothing else was on. I have to hand it to Warner for putting these out, though. THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN is available from the Warner Archives as well.